Homeless Juan (20) describes his life in the emergency shelter: “This is not a home, but a place of welfare”

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The Nemo emergency sleep center is located in a former vicarage with a large garden in Zurich. It offers overnight accommodation for teenagers aged 16 and over and young adults up to 23 years old with a valid Swiss residence permit. You can stay here for one night or up to three months.

There are currently seven teenagers on Nemo. Three young women and four boys. One of them is 20-year-old Juan*. He’s been sleeping here for three weeks. He’s the only one there this morning, along with principal Darja Baranova and a social worker. He was in voluntary counseling until nine o’clock. Blick was allowed to stay at home for the interview.

Warm atmosphere and privacy

Juan introduces himself with a friendly laugh and a handshake. He also shows you around the house and explains the rules. During the day, there is no one at home except those working. Entrance to Nemo is only possible from 17:00. “First you have to wash your hands and register at the ground floor office,” he explains.

On the ground floor there is a large kitchen and living room with access to the garden and an open dining room with a large dining table. Everything looks tidy, clean and comfortable. Overall a pleasant and warm atmosphere. Upstairs there are two three-bed bedrooms and one twin bedroom. All rooms have folding beds for emergencies. Young women and men sleep separately and each has their own bathroom. “You don’t just walk into rooms, you steal them. Everyone’s privacy is respected,” explains Juan.

What’s notable: None of the beds are dressed. Everyone has to make their beds every morning and change them in the evening because no one has a fixed bed and the arrangement of people in the house can change every day.

Childhood without parental care

The basement features a laundry room and a room where everyone can store their belongings for the duration of their stay, as well as a treasure trove of clean, partially new, donated clothes and shoes that can be used as needed. There are also lockable lockers for personal belongings of people staying at Nemo for more than three days. Juan’s belongings are in a small plastic bag. Some of the clothes are still on his ex-girlfriend, with whom he got along well.

In his living room, Juan talks openly about his life and how he became homeless. He never had a real home. The tragic life story of a 20-year-old young man becomes material for a book. Cold withdrawal of a newborn baby of a heroin-addicted mother who died prematurely and was placed in a baby home for the first few years after birth.

Until his teenage years, Rebel lived in a rural foster family in the canton of Zurich. Juan does not know any grandparents or other relatives. He has no photographs from his childhood. Even as a child, he felt that he was different, a stranger. The parents of his schoolmates in the village wanted to keep their children away from the boy, who had misguided behavioral problems and started hanging out with older people from the town’s drug gang at a young age.

Will stay at home until the implementation of the measures is closed

“Nobody cared why I was the way I was,” says Juan, who sometimes felt his stepfather’s harsh hand until he reciprocated as a teenager. “When the situation in foster care escalated, I was sent next door and found myself in a closed prison,” Juan says. There he completed his craft apprenticeship.

A few scars from a knife attack in his youth can be seen on Juan’s body, but the scars on his soul cannot be seen. Juan wishes to remain anonymous as he confronts a past marked by drugs, violence and crime, as well as negative contacts from that time, including his biological, drug-addicted father.

After being released into the Closed Measures Center and the judge’s emphatic words, he sees this as an opportunity to get his life back on track. He is on parole and knows that if he commits another crime as a young adult, he will spend years in prison. Juan wants to prevent this. He volunteers in a work program and is in regular contact with social workers and social education specialists who support him in his efforts at Nemo.

Juan feels comfortable with Nemo, both in the current group and among the staff at home. Juan: “This is not a home, but a place of prosperity.” Here he is appreciated, feels safe, understood and can find peace. There is no longer a need for the psychological stress of the street, along with the daily search for a place to spend the night.

Supported emergency accommodation as a temporary solution

Nemo is not a permanent home, but a temporary solution until a follow-up solution can be found, such as a place in an assisted living group. “A little more privacy in my own room, which I could design myself, would be nice,” says Juan. She is happy and grateful that she sought help and found support. Despite her difficult past, she is motivated, looks to the future with optimism, and wants to encourage others to accept help in a timely manner. “In Switzerland there are support opportunities if you cooperate and accept help,” he says.

Juan is still living on welfare. He wants to change this too. Juan needs to leave and go to “Streetchurch”; Here, he prepares for his professional future by participating in the vocational preparation program with support. “Thank you for giving a voice to people like me,” the 20-year-old hoodie says before leaving around noon. He will return to Nemo in the evening, eat with the group, and move into one of the empty beds in the men’s room.

*Editor’s name known

Source : Blick